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On Friday, Mitt Romney once again displayed his utter contempt for young voters. Reacting to the massive demonstration against Bank of America in Charlotte last week, Romney told WBTV that the protestors were simply too young to understand the economy or how banks work:
Asked what message he had for the protestors, Romney said, “Unfortunately, a lot of young folks haven’t had the opportunity to really understand how the economy works, and what it takes to put people to work in real jobs, and why we have banks, and what banks do. I understand — it’s a very understandable sentiment if you don’t find a job, and you can’t see rising incomes. You’re going to be angry and looking at someone to blame.
As one of the nearly 1,000 people (young and old) participating in the protests, I have a message for Mitt Romney: Dismiss us if you want, but young voters are not going away. We took to the streets in Charlotte because we know exactly what banks do, and we will not stand by while Bank of America is destroying our environment and our economy.
Mr. Romney, here’s a few things we know about what Bank of America does:
• Bank of America is the #1 funder of dirty coal, underwriting $4.3 billion over two years for the industry that poses the greatest threat to our health and the climate;
• Bank of America invests heavily in devastating mountaintop removal mining which poisons communities and kills jobs;
• Bank of America has foreclosed on more homes than any other financial institution in the country;
• Bank of America required a $45 billion taxpayer bailout to prevent the collapse of the American economy, and then gave CEO Brian Moynihan a “performance bonus” of $9.05 million.
Mitt, you want to talk about creating real jobs? Here’s a suggestion: instead of giving billions of dollars in government handouts to the fossil fuel industry, let’s invest in clean energy solutions that will not only protect our health and the climate, but will create 5 million clean energy jobs that can’t be shipped overseas.
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Cross-posted from WeArePowerShift.org
25 Comments
I think Mitt does not understand how banks work.
I understand how banks work, and I was quite young when I first understood.
What Mitt meant was that we fail to appreciate the greatness of the great men who use the banks to make themselves rich and the rest of us poor.
10 years Bush/Obama tax cuts for the rich no jobs. 2+ years Helicopter Ben bank bailout still no jobs. FDR using government cash to create jobs we created jobs and had a much faster economic recovery.
In the real world Mitt we look at what works and what works best and fastest so far we have no evidence less taxes for the rich work or that the bank bailout is working.
We don’t think more tax cuts for the rich or less bank regulation is going to work since it has not worked so far.
If Bush who got almost everything he wanted as President could not cut enough taxes for the rich and deregulate the banks enough to create jobs what makes you think cutting more will suddenly work?
Just how many more years should we wait for your ideas to work?
10 years is more than enough to wait Mitt.
Mitt Romney: Too callous to understand compassion
On the basis of his administration’s actions,
Obama thinks the same thing, but is smart enough not to vocalize it.
I understand how banks work, and BOA is no fucking bank!
I think the protesters understand just too well what’s going on, the real questions is if Romney and Obama think the same old bullshit is gonna keep working for them.
This is one of the defining characteristics of a conservative:
“There is nothing wrong with the system, after all, look how well I’ve done within it. There is something wrong with you – you failed to conform. Let’s focus all our efforts on forcing you to conform to the system and cease this foolish talk about changing the system, which could potentially put my interests at risk.”
I’m almost 52 and I don’t understand how banks work but I’ll guarantee those young people at Occupy do.
That sounds about right, but then Mitt has never been really clear on what he means. Figures he can always change his mind later when he finds an answer he likes better.m
Obama has said that the Government cannot create jobs.
Obama praises Reagan.
Obama touts NCLB, Vouchers and Charter Schools which defund Public Education.
Obama extended the Bush Tax Cuts. Obama never USED THE BULLY PULPIT to sell “Obama Tax Cuts” For Working People to replace the Bush Tax Cuts.
Obama “believes in” (touts publicly) Bank Bailouts and Trickle Down Economics. Uses the right wing term – “job creators”.
Greedy Billionaire Job Outsourcing Prick Jeff Immelt is Jobs Czar (Chief “Job Creator”).
Obama “believes” that Social Security and Medicare must be cut in order to save them. (Instead of increasing taxes and raising or removing the cap).
Maybe these ‘young people’ don’t know how banks works–but I imagine they DO understand how Mitt works (or doesn’t) . . . and that is Mitt’s problem
It’s not just Romney — the political class and establishment media (very much including the vaunted New York Times) often infantilize leftist protesters and protest movements. When confronted with mass protests against globalization or banks or Wall Street or any of it the establishment immediately casts the protest movements as just a bunch of ignorant idealistic kids.
I long ago gave up on the idea that protest movements will be able to civilly convince the political class or the plutocracy that the needs for various reforms are real. The status quo in the US will ultimately change, but not because of any top-down political leadership.
We have no real political leadership. What we have is a bunch of marionettes dancing to the manipulations of their masters. In the case of romney, he is puppet master dancing in front of the stage.
Media Consolidation put the MSM under the control of a handful of greedy billionaires like Sumner Redstone, Murdoch, and Moonves.
They are utterly determined to maintain the status quo by any means.
Tagging OWS as hippies, losers, wet-behind-the-ears kids, creates a simple narrative which has some appeal. As their personal circumstances worsen, people will find the MSM narrative to be much less appealing.
What else have they got?
Agents Provocateurs.
The MSM does not report police brutality. The cracking of heads will surely ensue.
The MSM will then tag the erstwhile idealists as violent thugs.
Mitt and friends are on the edge. They under estimate the state of the youth of the world. With luck this time we wont let them keep ANYTHING.
Guy Smiley’s hubris is off the charts.
Bank of America would not exist without a government handout – that is not hard to understand.
What I don’t understand is why banks kept lending to Romney after one, two, three, four, and five bankruptcies.
Yeah, like Romney was too young to understand what assault was!
Heh, because only “experts” like Dimon or Corzine totally get how hedge funds, the banking system, and our government “get” how banking works………oh wait……these are the same morons that have been utterly proven to either be incompetent, corrupt or both.
I’d say occupy has a better grasp then Dimon or Corzine and both of those putzes dealt with billions of dollars.
He should have added “too stupid” as well.
Anyone else see that jerk off on CNBC trying to defend what they were doing in Charlotte? Talk about being over your head. Watching that clown flounder on air for 4 minutes was nauseating.
The Government can create jobs. See FDR and the WPA. Plus, subsidies that are stragetically funded could also create jobs. It’s amazing how most don’t realize that being a member of the US military is akin to being a card carrying “socialist”
Romney: “Stupid hippie kids! They all need a haircut. I’d be the President who would give these hippie kids the haircut they need.”
Romney: Too rich and callous to give a crap about other people. Romney is the most ungodly arrogant man I think I’ve ever seen. The indifference he has for financial crime victims and his arrogant attitude about the consolidation of wealth in the hands of the few is shocking. SHOCKING.
… X 2
About the point made regarding Obama praising Reagan —
Ronald Reagan’s years in the WH were destructive ones to be sure for 99% Americans. So for Barack Obama to admire what Ronald Reagan did or stood for doing as POTUS says much about the political character and political misdirections/charades Barack Obama employed to become POTUS in 2008. Or how POTUS Obama conducts his WH regime since taking office on Jan.20,2009.
Ronald Reagan liked to claim government did not solve problems being government was the problem. This was bumper sticker Reaganism/ political posturing done very well. Funny/odd thing then became why did Ronald Reagan work so long and hard to become POTUS and CEO of the USG if this was all or part of the “problem” as Ronald Reagan often amused himself and his fans by saying?
Government is not the problem. It was not a problem during WW2 for instance was it? The WW2 era WH was run by FDR who was doing New Dealism since 1932 — effective USG run by a Democrat was no problem then we Americans are told very often. What is a problem is when governance is inept,non-compliant with valid Rule Of Law,incompetent,party hack infested and egregious money politics and excessive secrecy corrupted governance get greenlighted. Like what Ronald Reagan allowed to take place. Or how POTUS Barack Obama has since Jan.20,2009. Not too hard to see why Obama admires Reagan being Reagan got away with lots of shady stuff and ended up having major airport and aircraft carrier named for him. No Downside Ronny.No Downside Barack? May look good but up close smells bad.
Ronald Reagan was all for government when his allies stood to benefit whether they be militarists,corporatists and the American 1% Aristocracy.
Oddly enough the so called D Party POTUS we Americans have had since Jan.20,2009 seems to line up with Ronald Reagan in similar ways in how Obama conducts the DOJ ( Ed Meese meet Eric Holder) and how the Obama run Pentagon and CIA would easily fit into what Caspar Weinberger and William Casey would have been comfortable with.
So much for the myths/fables of Obama about/to do with hope and change — forget that 2008 junk — now Barack Obama wants to be America’s 2012 Warrior President. How Hollywoodish.How Reaganish.
So anyway —- lets elect Barack Obama again because he is doing for/to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs what Mitt Romney would/will do if given a chance instead.
Incredible.
Of course Romney would say something like that, wouldn’t he? It’s in his script, which is the script written for him by his 1% Rightwing Think Tank buddies, as spewed forth in the corporate-owned propoganda wurlitzer media.
What eles is new. As the French say: plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
This is the same putrid clap-trap that the PTB spewed forth about the Anti-Viet Nam War & Civil Rights & Women’s Rights protests: that it was all a bunch of “know-nothing KIDS,” who, you know, just didn’t “get” how the “system works.” And if we’d all just “mature,” then we’d “see.”
I can actually remember my parents “lecturing” me, using those very words.
Or, if it wasn’t “stupid kids who don’t know anything about anything,” then we got the “it’s all outside agitators, who must be stopped from ruining the system.”
Believe me, this kind of *propoganda* has been pumped forth for decades in the USA. Nothing new under the sun here.
Conservatives, and their fellow travelers, however, will be only too happy to latch onto this old stinky canard and believe that they’ve received “enlightenment.”
Bah humbug.
It wasn’t until Walter Kronkite told US citizens the truth about the Viet Nam War that citizens’ minds began to accept the “real truth” that the “stupid hippies” had been telling them all along. That was a tipping point, when the protests were attended by a LOT of citizens, not just students. It was interesting…
So I am *hopeful* (but not holding my breath) that there will be a similar tipping point in the Occupy movement. At least the terminology is out there, and citizens understand the meanings of the terminology, even if they disagree.
Romney’s a big fat mega-rich .00001%er. Of course, he’s gonna say shit like this. It’s who he IS. But so is Obama.